Ian McDonald - Desolation Road

When the alarm came he almost vaulted out of his hammock. But for his Freelancer-trained wits, he would have jumped straight down the airwell. He paused to gain composure. Composure was survival. Think before you act. Forethought, no spontaneity. He checked that the roll of documents was on his shoulder, then seized the swing rope and tarzaned to the lip of the shaft. Proximity alarms. Kleenteems. The backlog of complaints about vermin in the circuitry had built up until the department of water and sewage treatment was pressured into action. He felt for his gas mask. It was exactly where he had left it. He slipped it on and swung up into a major power conduit running parallel to the service duct. Thousands of amperes pulsed next to his cheek. He squinted through a chink in the cladding and watched the clouds of riot gas roll down the tunnel.

Flashlight beams lanced through the clouds of toxic gas. The Kleenteem waded into view: two men and a woman, paper-suited executive types from the department of water and sewage treatment, fat balloon men in their transparent plastic isolation suits. From their backpacks they poured a fog of neurotoxic gas down the tunnel and warped the air with their wrist-mounted sonic disturbers. One of the Kleenteem picked up Mikal Margolis’s alarm and showed it to the others. They nodded. and their helmet beams bobbed and curtsied.

Arpe Magnusson’s gasmasked head poked out of a hatchway, followed by an arm and a written note.

The two men scurried through the labyrinth of access ways, gantries and airshafts until they arrived at the junction with the level ten airduct which the Kleenteem had recently passed. Bodies of dead mice lay stiffening on the metal grilles, proof of the efficacy of the Kleenteem’s weaponry. Arpe Magnusson pointed to three snaking plastic hoses. Mikal Margolis nodded. He knew what they were, the Kleenteem’s umbilicals. Arpe Magnusson traced the umbilicals back to the air outlet. Motioning for Mikal Margolis to watch carefully, he uncoupled the airhoses and connected them to the level ten sewage pipe. Brown filth poured down the hoses and raced into the gas-milky distance. At once the headlamp beams froze in position, then began to wave frantically to and fro. Finally they fell to the ground and remained motionless. A few seconds later the two men distinctly heard three soft, brown, wet explosions.

Mikal Margolis had been two years in the tunnels when the opportunity came. The computer reported a death in the North West Quartersphere Planning and Developments Department, iron and steel division. Some junior sub-sub-production assistant secretary had thrown himself into a geyser in Yellow Bay because of a bad decision over the Arcadia project. Even before he was fished part-cooked out of the geyser by the Chrysanthemum Brigade, employed specifically for such duties, Mikal Margolis had taken his number, his name, his job, his desk, his office, his apartment, his life and his soul. The risk in approaching the North West Quartersphere Projects and Developments Manager/Director in such a direct fashion was great: the likelihood of recognition was nearly one hundred percent, but Mikal Margolis was not prepared to spend several years and a virtual economy of black money weaving his way up through personal assistants, junior sub-managers, temporary liaison officers, production assistant managers, sector organizers, junior sys tems analysts, sales directors, financial directors (junior and senior), area directors, chief directors, project directors, sub-managers and project directors’ personal managers. The information on his roll of papers was important.

So it was that upon a Tuesday morning at approximately 10:15, this being the best morning for a business man’s peace of mind according to Lemuel Shipwright’s Psychology of Managerial Practices two volumes, Ree and Ree, Mikal Margolis straightened his paper tie and knocked on the North West Quartersphere Projects and Developments Manager/Director’s door.

“Come in,” said the North West Quartersphere Projects and Developments Manager/Director.

Mikal Margolis entered, bowed politely and said in a clear but not too loud voice, “The mineralogical reports on the Desolation Road project.”

Busy with his computer terminal, the North West Quartersphere Projects and Developments Manager/Director’s back was turned to him.

“I don’t recall anything about a Desolation Road Project,” said the North West Quartersphere Projects and Developments Manager/Director. Mikal Margolis’s mouth suddenly felt like a parrot’s crotch. There was something oddly familiar about the voice.

“The Desolation Road project, sir: the ore sand extraction project. The feasibility studies the planning council requested.”

The bluff was so enormous it must succeed through audacity alone. Mikal Margolis was certain that the North West Quartersphere Projects and Developments Manager/Director did not know the face and name of every employee in his division. He was equally certain the North West Quartersphere Projects and Developments Manager/Director was so busy that he could not possibly remember all his decisions.

“Remind me more.”

The bait was being taken.

“It was found that the red sands in the region around the isolated settlement of Desolation Road contain a phenomenally high level of iron oxides, the sand being, in effect, virtually pure rust. The project was to study means of exploiting this resource through bacteriological action upon the rust sands, rendering it more easily processable. It’s all laid out in this report, sir.”

“Very interesting, Mr. Margolis.”

Mikal Margolis’s heart stopped dead for a perilous moment. The North West Quartersphere Projects and Developments Manager/Director turned to face him. At first Mikal Margolis did not recognize the elegant young man, smooth, powerful, dangerous, not the least bit blubbery or whining as Mikal Margolis remembered him.

“Good God. Johnny Stalin.”

“Shareholder 703286543.”

Mikal Margolis stood waiting for the Company police to come. He waited and waited and waited. At length he said, “Well, aren’t you going to call them?”

“They won’t be necessary. Now, your files.”

“What about them?”

“I want to see them. If they’re worth the risk of coming out of the walls and engaging in this charade, oh, I know all about you, Mr. Margolis, everything, then they must be worth seeing.”

“But…”

“But you are a convicted murderer and a Freelancer… Mr. Margolis, my father was a fool and if I had stayed in Desolation Road I would be a dirtpoor farmer and not a man of business and industry. What you may have done in the past to my family is all past. Now, show me the files. I take it you have conducted a full mineralogical, chemical, biological and cost-effectiveness study to back all this?”

Mikal Margolis fumbled with his stolen briefcase and spread the papers across the North West Quartersphere Projects and Developments Manager/Director’s desk. He weighted the corners down with little paperweights in the shape of naked boys lying on their backs with their legs in the air.

“Iwill give her the earth,” said Umberto Gallacelli, siestaing on his bed, his head resting on a pile of soiled underpants. “Only the whole earth is good enough for her.”

“I will give her the sea,” said Louie Gallacelli, fastening his bootlace tie before the mirror. Business had been brisk since the pilgrims started coming. “She is so like the sea, boundless, untamed, restless yet yielding. For her, the sea.” He glanced at Ed Gallacelli, oily and immersed in a copy of Practical Mechanic. “Hey, Eduardo, what are you going to give our lovely wife for her birthday?”